ERBIL, Kurdistan Region —Twenty-one prisoners escaped from a prison in al-Muthanna province at dawn on Sunday, according to the governor, who ordered the arrest of prison officials over the incident.
“Twenty-one prisoners who dealt drugs escaped after three in the morning from al-Hilal prison after one of the guards of the prison’s main gate was attacked,” Muthanna governor Ahmed Manfi Judah said in a statement.
The governor has ordered the arrest of prison officials and an investigation to determine whether the reason behind the escape was “negligence or deliberate.”
Nine of the fugitives have been found after a search, Iraq’s security media cell said in a statement released on Telegram.
More than 6,000 people were arrested on suspicion of drug dealing or use across Iraq in the first 11 months of 2020, Mazin al-Quraishi, of the Ministry of Interior’s narcotics directorate, told Rudaw in November.
Iraq’s weak border control has contributed to the growing drug problem.
Around 75 to 80 percent of drugs are smuggled through ports in southern Iraq, as well as the borders with Kuwait and Iran, according to Brigadier Raad Ali Hussein, also from the narcotics directorate.
The Iranian border in particular is vulnerable to drug trafficking “by Iranian citizens who enter the country for tourism and other purposes,” he added.
